"Double-weakness"; and the proof of the pudding

It has just been announced that six trusts around the country have been rated "double-weak" by the Healthcare Commission, meaning that they have been judged weak on both "quality of service" and "use of resources".

One of these trusts is the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore. Now, I am not an orthopod. I have never worked at RNOH. I have no particular desire to. However, I can tell you that if I had a bust cruciate, or a child with a bone cancer, or indeed anything else orthopaedic and I was able to get referred or to get my child referred to Stanmore, I bloody well would, and I know the majority of doctors I have worked with would feel exactly the same.

Stanmore does many different things. Perhaps the most emotive is the one I've already mentioned: it treats bone cancers in children. This is relevant not because it's emotive, but because it is important in understanding these ratings, which are based in part on patient surveys. Bone cancer in children is by and large a brutal diagnosis for the child and for the parents. They are frequently incredibly aggressive, crippling, and basically deeply nasty diagnoses to make and to have. To get an idea of how bad, check the blogger's friend Wikipedia, in particular the page on Osteosarcoma.

Stanmore runs a national service covering sarcoma. This means they get referred children from around the country who have developed cancers with have some of the worst survival rates of any childhood cancer, and they have to manage these children and their parents through surgery and follow-up treatment.

I wonder why their patient satisfaction ratings are lower than a trust that deals primarily with deranged and grateful elderly patients?

This sort of research will put people off going to Stanmore who absolutely should, and will mean they get treated at centres less able to deal with their problem. It is for that reason utterly contemptible. So if you're thinking of not going to RNOH because of this survey, ask your doctor first what they'd do, and then ask whether you want to be treated by someone who deals with your condition every day of the week, or someone who sees four a month.